


A Part

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, M/M, Pre-Reichenbach, Unrequited Love, not very sad though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 02:56:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1924104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short, hardly edited drabble about unrequited love and John's thought process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Part

It’s shitty if you’re a young girl and fall in love with your best mate even though he doesn’t feel the same. It’s shitty but people sympathize. Your sister calls you up and giggles about whether or not you’ve kissed him yet or if you’ve even done _anything_ and berates you because _how the hell are you going to marry him if you won’t even tell him you love him?_ and when you snap at her to shut up there’s a knowing silence and it’s shitty but there are millions of crap novels written about your exact situation (so many that you start to question your individuality) and it’s shitty but you’re not alone. You have friends to meet up with at dim, stale bars and talk about how thick he is and if he’ll ever take any hints while you sip a drink that tastes more like water that’s been sitting undisturbed for too long than beer and when you come home at two in the morning and you trip up the last step and he doesn’t even look up from what he’s doing you add it to the list of things you’ll say the next time you go out and you go to bed wondering how any one person can be so so ignorant.

See, these are John Watson’s two biggest problems: nobody really cares about a middle aged man having a schoolyard crush on his flatmate, and (more importantly), the flatmate in question isn’t some thick bloke who won’t take any hints but a man who can practically read John’s mind.

Of course if you would ask any outsider the first problem could easily be fixed. John has a sister who could call him up and giggle, and he’s free to purchase all the crap novels he wants. Still, his sister would tell his mum and he’d never hear the end of it ( _Two gay children? Heavens!_ ) and everytime he went for Christmas he would have to tell her that he’s not actually gay, thank you, twenty times before she would take the hint. And to be quite honest John doesn’t have much time for reading.

As for the second, well, in the silence of the flat on early mornings it’s just sort of hoped that it will resolve itself. As time had passed Watson hadn’t been asked to move out or anything like that, so he assumed he was doing something right. On some nights when he couldn’t sleep he wondered if it was because of how gradually he had fallen in love, so slowly that maybe it just seemed like a natural change. But as the sun turned the sky into a dull blue-grey he would always end up deciding that if the other man didn’t seem to mind then why should he?

Perhaps the most infuriating part about the whole situation was that John didn’t have a sudden moment when it hit him that he was in love. It came on slowly and then built momentum, with each solved case and “experiment” that made it impossible to make dinner for a week, with each conversation and each moment spent in his presence.

And he had tried to stop it. For over a month after every time spent staring for a second too long John would remind himself that he’s straight (isn’t he?) and even if he weren’t it was likely that the other was aromantic and even if that wasn’t true it still would never happen. On a crisp September day in a cab on the way to the shop to get more milk he had come up with a solution; he would just have to remain as unattached as possible. He would still be his best friend, he just wouldn’t let it grow any further.

It’s just so fucking hard sometimes not to get too attached. How do you keep your distance from a man that you sometimes have to remind after three days that sleep is vital to the human body, even if you are a bloody genius and yes you have to listen to me, I’m a doctor and go to bed the case can wait and how do you keep your distance from man who points out everything in your girlfriends that made you know from the start that it wouldn’t be a long-lasting relationship and how do you keep your distance from a man that sometimes seems knows you better than you know yourself? And why can he never find an answer to any of these damned questions that never seem to go away?

It’s on a Tuesday night (or rather a Wednesday morning) spent staring at his ceiling while the clock on his bedside table reads out 3:43 that he supposes it’s better to be in a one sided love than to not have it exist at all. He’s never felt this way about someone and even though it aches in his chest on Sunday nights spent on his bed watching the two stray cats that come and play in the garden he decides it’s a sweet sort of ache. Some days the pain envelops him but that’s okay because it’s just as likely that the next day they’ll go out for dinner because the madman hasn’t eaten for the past thirty-six hours and no that’s not okay and he’ll spend the entire time glaring at the table and John will love him all the more and remember why he stays through it all.

Because no matter what relationship he has with Sherlock, John’s just happy to be a part of it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Criticism is definitely definitely definitely more than welcome, I'm just picking up writing after a decent break.


End file.
